Chapter 15 Axe’s Parade
Axe was looking forward to a fulfilling day, for he was driving his favorite bulldozer Old Coronary and would soon be smashing someone’s house to bits, his favorite activity. Slumped beside him in the cab was an intelligence agent that Chief Sordid had detailed to accompany him, some stiff named Edgar. Though Edgar wore gloves and had his hat pulled far down over his face, nothing could hide the extreme spareness of his form. He would not talk either and only shifted his position when the dozer hit a chuckhole or took a corner. While sitting at a red light, Axe had lifted the brim of the agent’s fedora and had found himself looking into the eyeholes of a skull. Though this was a little alarming, he had not complained to Chief Sordid. It never paid to complain about a City agent, and anyway Edgar would not distract him with conversation.
In the darkness of very early morning Axe and Edgar were following two police cars, and behind them came, in a sort of parade: a back up bulldozer (just in case), the paddy wagon to hold the family that would be Relocated, trucks to carry away the rubble, street department vehicles to close off the block, and finally, more police cars. Pastor Hypocrisy of Mammon Mart Community Church was on call to console Relocated families and was to meet them at the site.
Axe flipped out his phone and called his pal Grave, who was driving one of the trucks. Grave had a police radio on his dash and would know the latest about the situation at the condemned house.
“Hey, Gravy! They got the family out yet?”
“They’re coming. The cops have been inside and they’ve got all but one of the kids.”
“Yeah, there’s always one. And they’ll make us wait an hour while they look all over the place and then find the kid’s just visiting across the street or something like that.”
“The way they talk, they’re not waiting today.”
“You kidding me?”
“Well, the cops that are already there sure don’t want to wait. They’re talkin’ about what happened on this block three years ago, something about smashed up police cars. They’re scared! You ever hear about explosions in this block? A crater down on the corner?”
Axe could not remember anything like that and said in the crudest language that the cops were liars and cowards. Grave agreed with a yawn.
“Anyhow, they’re supposed to get the family out in the truck before it gets light.”
That was standard. You could not have neighbors gawking at a Relocation truck just sitting there, especially if people were screaming inside and beating on the metal walls, which was the usual.
“Here we are,” Axe said as he halted Old Coronary. He turned one of the dozer’s spotlights toward the front of Leasing House. “Yeah, the family’s dressed and in the yard. How come they’re not taking them out the back way?”
“No door back there, Axy, just a bunch of hammered up plywood.”
Axe began to laugh as he swiveled his spot around the walls of Leasing House. “Grave, can you see this place? Can you believe it? Geez, what do they need a dozer for? Just give me ten minutes with a claw hammer. Man, it’s got no roof!”
“Ah, you must have seen worse.”
“Not many!”
Axe turned his light all around. The street department workers had hopped out and were hurriedly setting up roadblocks. Soon this block of Sandhill Street would be cordoned off so that no one could enter it from either direction. He noted with pain and near disbelief that a forbidden flag was flying from the second story of a house just across the street from the condemned house.
“Hey, Grave, you see that?”
“What?”
“Where I’m shining my spot. Look!”
“Look at what?”
“The flag, doper! Is that Heavenite?”
A long pause.
“Geez, Axe, how do they get away with that?”
With her fourteen year old brother Quake beside her, Miss Wittily Hope was looking past the flag from the second story hall window of Hope House. Other members of the family were watching out other front windows. Behind Quake was a visitor from the neighborhood, Prevarica Leasing, who had roused the Hopes in the night by knocking at their back door and had told them what was happening, at least as much as she ever told the truth about anything. So Wittily had then directed the other Hopes to get dressed and to go to various vantage points, in hope of learning what was really happening. Though only twenty-one, Wittily was the acknowledged leader of the family in every emergency. She was firmly in charge now of everyone except Prevarica.
“And you’re telling me you’re not supposed to go with your folks?” Wittily challenged the girl.
“I told you I work for Councilman Fear,” argued Prevarica. “I’m City. Even the Mayor depends on me. So no, I don’t have to go. I’ve been told so.”
“Right. Then how come you’re hiding in here?”
“I’m not hiding, I’m just staying out of the way.”
“And when your family’s gone and your house is down, where are you supposed to live?”
“Leave that to me. Just don’t try to turn me in because it would super backfire. They’d arrest you.”
Wittily turned and tried to get Prevarica to look her in the eye. “Kid, do you really, really think that we Hopes would just turn you over to them? After what you and Quake saw when the Sluggards were Relocated? What kind of evil scum do you think we are?”
Prevarica finally met her gaze but with no understanding in her eyes. “You want rid of us, don’t you?”
“Yes—no! Not that bad! I don’t care about what lousy neighbors you’ve been to us, and you’ve been the worst imaginable I might add, but I don’t want to stand by and just watch this happen. Just think how it must cut through your parents to have this happening to them within sight of Hope House! I mean, in sight of a safe place with the King’s flag flying. I’ve been in a situation like that, so I know.”
Quake laid a hand on his sister’s arm. “Wit, she doesn’t get what you’re saying.”
“I know, I know. Hey, who’s that with your family, Prevarica?”
Prevarica looked out. The front yard of her house was irregularly lit by flashlights, headlights, spotlights, and flashing police car lights, enough to show her someone standing near her family members.
“Oh, her,” she said and made a disgusted face.
“It’s Prayer,” said Quake. “What’s she doing there?”
Wittily could see now that it was Prayer, a black woman who worked for the Heavenly Embassy and who was sometimes seen around Leasing House. She was said to have been quietly living there as an agent of the Heavenite government, very much against the wishes of the Leasings, who never acknowledged her presence. They had no way to keep her out, for she could pass through solid walls. Wittily had often been intrigued by the situation, but too much was happening for her to concentrate on it now.
“They’re putting them in the paddy wagon,” she said unnecessarily to Quake and Prevarica, for they could see this as well as she. “But not Prayer. Looks like Prayer wants to follow, but they’re not letting her.”